The Winning and the Taking Part: The Global Game of NGO Influence

Abstract

NGOs have claimed several trophies in the game of global politics in recent years. The World Development Movement claimed to have halted the General Agreement on Trade in Services in 2002, which would have opened the door to extensive privatisation of public utilities in Africa (Timms 2005: 8–10). Oxfam, it is said, influenced World Bank policies on debt relief, fair trade, the position of mining companies in East Timor and the African Union’s response to the EU’s proposed economic partnership agreements (Anderson in Rugendyke 2007: 84). In Tanzania, HakiKazi reported that 40 per cent of the resources previously used to repay debts were, as a result of its efforts, now being used for education, health and water; and in Ethiopia a campaign by Oxfam enabled coffee growers to obtain intellectual property rights on their brands of coffee, after initial resistance by Starbucks (The Guardian, Dar es Salaam, 3 July 2007: ii). Pressure from the Jubilee Debt Campaign and others had by 2008 secured more than $88bn of debt cancellation in the world’s poorest countries (Jubilee Debt Campaign 2008: 1). The proposed multilateral agreement on investment (MAI), which would have restricted the right of African governments to control the activities of foreign businesses within their frontiers, was scuppered in 1998 as a result of pressure from a diverse range of NGOs (Tanzanian Affairs, May-August 1998: 10–12).